Under the scorching sun, the fishermen bargain with those queuing up to buy: mainly women, who hope to make a small profit at the local market.
But in this deeply poor part of Kenya, the transaction between fisherman and female market seller is rarely a financial one.
The practice is known colloquially as "sex for fish" - or, in the Luo language of the area, "jaboya".
Lucy Odhiambo, 35, prepares her latest purchase for the market, descaling the fish and slitting them open to remove their innards. A widow and mother of five, she says women here are in a bind.
"I'm forced to pay for the fish with sex because I have no other means," she tells the BBC.
"Usually I sleep with one or two fishermen a week. I could get diseases but I have no other choice: I have my children to send to school. Jaboya is an evil practice."
'No longer dependent on men'
But, slowly, the tide is turning.
Agnes Auma takes me out on the lake aboard a boat she now owns.
It is steered by fishermen she employs and when they catch the fish, she manages the sale.
Some of the money is paid to her staff, some is used to repay the cost of the boat - and the rest she keeps.
It is a project run by a local charity called Vired, supported by the US Peace Corps, and it is changing the lives of the women involved.
I am Ashamed
Felix Ochieng, a 26-year-old who is married but still sleeps with three women a week in return for his fish.
He tells me sometimes a female customer will pay 500 Kenyan shillings ($6; £3.50) in cash and another 500 shillings with their body.
"I inherited this practice from my father, who used to do the same," he says, promising he uses a condom.
I ask if he is ashamed of what he does.
"Yes I am ashamed," he replies, staring out at the lake, "and it's a bad thing. But there are temptations that come with women."
Culled from BBC
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